Fully Autonomous Cars To Begin Operation In California

The latest news in the fully autonomous cars division is that they have now been allowed testing in the State of Californa. California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said on Monday that will be looking past the requirement for fully autonomous vehicles to have a person in the driver’s seat. This new rule will be going into effect soon.

The latest rules allow autonomous cars not having a steering wheel, foot pedals, mirrors, and human drivers in the seats to be tested on Californian roads. These new regulations have been approved just this Monday. A public notice will be going up on the DMV’s website on the 2nd of March. Then there would be a 30-day-timetable before the first permits are issued at the start of April.

(Source: Waymo)

“This is a major step forward for autonomous technology in California,” DMV Director Jean Shiomoto said in a statement. “Safety is our top concern and we are ready to begin working with manufacturers that are prepared to test fully driverless vehicles in California.”

This is not the first state in the US to allow fully autonomous vehicles on the roads. Waymo started testing driverless cars in Pheonix, Arizona back in October and intends to launch a commercial service sometime later this year. The states of Nevada and Michigan have also allowed driverless cars on the roads.

(Source: Futurist Speaker)

The announcement in California carries much more weight as it leads the US in terms of the number of companies testing these driverless cars on the highways. General Motors, Waymo, and Uber have always taken a keen interest in California’s rules regarding autonomous cars and all of them are developing their own fleets of driverless cars for public use.

This is a big step towards the full autonomy of cars and it won’t be long before other follow the example and in the next decade, we might see driverless cars becoming a norm.